I know that I write a lot in each blog post – this helps me remember what colours or cardstock I’ve used in case I want to get a similar effect in the future, in addition to providing information that some readers might be interested in – so please don’t think that you have to read every word I’ve written. If you don’t want to read my musings, or know what I used and how I made a card you can just click the thumbnail images to view each card at a larger size, and then click “Back” and scroll down to the next section.

Thank You – for poping over to have a look at my blog
and
Thank You – to everybody whos left comments on my previous blog posts.

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I haven’t done a lot of crafting over the last few weeks. The soft fruit in the garden was ripening and needed picking, which, for a person with my health/disability issues, is a long and hard job, even though I do most of it sat down on a garden chair. Had a few soakings as one thing I definitely can’t do is “do a dash” when the rain came.

What I have been working on, craft wise, as a longish project on a lap-tray in bed of an evening is making a beaded banner. As far as cardmaking is concerned, the only card I’ve made is a get well soon card for an uncle who’s not well.

I hope you like the few items I’ve got to show you.

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CARD:

If you click on the thumbnail images you can have a look at a larger images.

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I made this as a recessed card, putting a recess in the middle and then making a “hospital bed curtain” to go around the front by scoring an A4 sheet of blue vellum every 1cm using my Hougie Board. I then punched a small hole in the middle top of each section and folded the vellum, concertina style, before checking the size and cutting off the bottom piece to make it fit my card. I used jewellery making findings to attach the “curtain” to my card front, using tigertail wire, crimp beads, eye pins and silver spacer beads, with a couple of washers behind. The front is decorated using silver peel-offs, which include a “Brysiwch Wella” greeting (Welsh for get well soon).

Closeup of the top right attachment of the curtain.

This shows the depth of the recess and curtain. The recess itself is 3cm deep made by scoring a square, then scoring another square 3cm inside the first. I then cut a X from corner to corner of the first square. I also made two squares of the same Centura Pearl Snow White cardstock as I’d used for the main card, one to stick to the front of the pushed back recess, for the topper to go on, and the other to stick inside the card to cover the back of the flaps.

Beaded Banner – This was made using the Stained Glass version of a Beaded Banner Kit. It took me quite a while to make because my hands and fingers were not working at their best for a lot of the time. Mind you, the Pony Beads use to make this are quite large with really large holes, and the kit came with a large plastic needle for using to thread the nylon thread through the beads.

A closeup of the centre of the cross.
– Now I’ve got the pattern, and know that I can make up a piece this big even if it does take me some days to make, I’m thinking of making it again, but buying an assortment of beads and making some changes to the colours. So keep an eye out in future for another version appearing in my blog.

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These three pictures are all of the same bracelet from different angles. It includes five beads in a knotted “shambala style” bracelet.

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CRAFTYBOB.COM UPDATE:

Being so busy lately I haven’t had time to upload any new items to my shop on CraftyBob.com, but you can have a look – here – at my whole shop on craftybob.com and the items I’ve already uploaded.

CUP UPDATE:

CUP Mailer – You can see a copy of the CUP mailer sent out on Friday, 27th July, by clicking – here. There are lots of pictures of designs and cards, as well as bits of news, such as the latest batch of baby hedgehogs that designer Patricia Platt is looking after. And don’t forget that if you spend just £10 on the craftsUprint site you will get this weeks FREE Offers. The free items include a CD-ROM, with designs as voted for by CUP customers, as well as some other items. Click – here – to see what’s included.

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You can see the cards Ive made using design sheets from CUP in my Crafter Showcase Area on Craftsuprint.com – here
(Just scroll down past the top boxes to see the cards.)

(Hi All – You should find a box below where you can leave a comment if you feel like it, I really do appreciate all your comments. Dut due to the fact that Ive had some problems with Spam/advertising posts, that are absolutely nothing to do with the content of my blog, I now moderate all comments before they go live. Genuine comments will go live when Ive checked through the list – usually a couple of times a day.)

Thank You – for popping over to have a look at my blog
and
Thank You – to everybody whos left comments on my previous blog posts.

-oOo-

The results of the July competition run by CUP has been declared and the names of those who entered have gone up, so I can now show you the card I made. My card came in at 18th. The theme this time was Male Birthday so I didn’t want to make anything too ornate. Please click on the thumbnail images to have a look at larger images in each case.

CARD:

As my father isn’t into sports or drinking or pubs I decided to use a background scene as the main image and as matting and layering I took shades of blue from the sky and yellow from the halo around the sun in the photo, with a bit of gold thrown in.

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sunset bckground kit 1 by Katrina Oldham (I printed my chosen image from the kit of many backgrounds out twice at half size onto Crafty Bob paper.I trimmed one around the edges and then, after measuring, cut it into three panels.I cut a narrower strip from the centre of the second copy to use as a dimensional strip on my card.I went around the edges of each of these panels with a black Promarker to cover the white cut edge.Each of the three panels were stuck onto gold mirror card and trimmed to leave a border of approximately 2mm. Each of the gold matted panels were stuck onto a blue pearlescent paper and trimmed to give a border of 4mm.I then used a texture rolling tool to give a pierced effect 1mm in from the edge.I prepared my base card by scoring and folding in half an A3 Centura Pearl card.I trimmed a texture blue paper to be the same size and a yellow, linen textured, cardstock to be 1cm smaller in all directions.After rounding the corner I used a Hougie Board to emboss a radiant sun pattern across the whole card-stock before using gold brads to attach the yellow card to the blue textured paper.These were then stuck to the base card.I used 1mm deep, double sided, foam tape to attach the matted panels to my prepared card, and the same tape to attach the extra layer to the centre of the middle panel.I finished off the card with a gold, die-cut, scalloped edged circle which I matted onto the same iridescent blue paper as the panels and attached to the bottom right of the card where the embossed rays terminated using 3mm deep, double sided foam squares.A simple Happy Birthday greeting was added with the foam tape.)

July Card Making Competition – The results are in and the winners have been announced – here. The entries and the points received by the top 40 can be seen – here – for the time being. First prize went to Dianne Jackson, Second prize went to Marion Enefer, and the Third prize went to Dianne’s sister Cynthia Massey. Congratulations ladies. There were 48 entries this time, from all around the world, with a nice assortment amongst them.

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You can see the cards Ive made using design sheets from CUP in my Crafter Showcase Area on Craftsuprint.com – here
(Just scroll down past the top boxes to see the cards.)

(Hi All – You should find a box below where you can leave a comment if you feel like it, but due to the fact that Ive had some problems with Spam/advertising posts, that are absolutely nothing to do with the content of my blog, I now moderate all comments before they go live. Genuine comments will go live when Ive checked through the list – usually a couple of times a day.)

Thank you for dropping in to have a look at my latest blog post. I hope you enjoy having a read of this post and a look at the cards.
If you click on “home” and then scroll down you should be able to see lots more of my cards and other hand crafted items, and with over 280 of posts online, according to my blog dashboard, there are a lot of items to look at.

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Regular readers of my blog will have noticed that I do try and put up links within each post to some of consumables and digital items I’ve used while making my hand crafted items. Of course, being me and having a bit (OK – a lot!) of an assortment of a crafty stash, quite often I’ve not got the slightest idea what it is I’m using, or where I got it, by the time I come to using some stuff, but I hope that the links I do put in are of use to somebody at some point.

Regular readers will also have noticed that a lot of the digital items I use I’ve bought via a site called craftsUprint, but I tend to forget that some people may not have an idea what craftsUprint (and it’s sister sites) are about. So I thought I’d do a bit of a series of write ups about the CUP family of sites, starting with the craftsUprint site itself, in this post.

Don’t worry – it’s not going to be a huge essay and no handcrafted items. I’ll start this post with pictures of some of my latest creations, before going to give some information about CUP.

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CARDS:

(If you click on the thumbnail images you can have a look at a larger image of each item.)

Here are my latest card creations.

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sunset bckground kit 1 by Katrina Oldham (The card was simply made by printing one of the images in the kit out onto Crafty Bob paper at a little less than half size. After trimming it was stuck to the front of a base card that I made by scoring and folding in half an A4 sheet of gold mirror card. I’ve been asked to make an assortment of sympathy cards both religious and non-religious in both Welsh and English, which is why there’s no greeting on this card card yet as I’m waiting to see which language this one needs to be in.)

Pets Silhouettes by Vicki Avcin & 12 Colour Haze Background Papers by June Young & Wood Frames by Carol Lepard & Etched Metal Corners & Ornaments by Carol Lepard (This is a print, trim, score and fold quick card I designed myself from an assortment of Designer Resources. I took the elements used into one of my graphics packages and moved them around and re-sized them until I was happy with the composition. I tried the corners in a variety of shades of brown but in the end decided to turn them completely black so that they were in the same colour as the silhouette main element. The finished design was printed out onto Tesco Finest heavyweight photo paper, trimmed, scored and folded into a card. I haven’t added a greeting to the front of this card, but rather put it on an insert inside.)

6 Double Bow Sentiment or Journalling Tags by Vicki Avcin & Beautiful Butterflies Cu Resource by Susan Wood & designer resource ruffled pink rose and frame by Sally McIntyre & 5X5 Card Fronts set 11 by Cassandra Campsall (This is another of my own designs built up from a selection of Designer Resources. For this card I took in one of the sentiment tags, one of the butterflies, the roses and layers, and a framed card front, into one of my graphics packages and copied, re-sized, moved and arranged the items until I had a 5″ x 5″ card topper I was happy with. I then put further copies of the butterfly at different sizes and the rose layers by the side of the topper on the sheet and then printed them out on Crafty Bob paper. My card base was made by cutting in half a 12″ square sheet of pink, linen textured, cardstock and scoring it in half to make a 6″ x 6″ base card. The topper was then stuck directly to this. I shaped the flower and butterfly layers before sticking them in place using glue gel.)

The same card as above but photo taken from an angle to show dimension on butterflies and roses.

Delicious Chocolates by Marie Wolman (Yet another card where I’ve taken designer resources to build up my own design in a graphics package before printing, but this time I’ve used a lot of chocolaty elements from one kit rather than using an assortment of different kits. As well as the card front topper I put extra layers for the chocolate lolly-pop and the ribbon bow on the page before printing it ont the Crafty Bob paper. After cutting out I attached the base layer directly to the front of a tent fold A5 card made by scoreing and folding in half an A4 sheet of linen textured gold cardstock. After rounding the sides of the lolly, and giving the bow some shape as well, I attached these to the front of the topper using foam tape.)

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CUP FAMILY OF SITES:

There are several sites in the CUP family of sites:

craftsUprint – a site selling digital downloads for the crafter that have been created by over 250 different designers. Also affectionately known as CUP – which you can find -> here

Craftforums – a forum for crafters and designers – which you can find -> here

craftybob.com – a site where crafters can sell their hand crafted creations – which you can find -> here

Papertole – a site where you can buy toppers, and card, and peel offs, and all sorts of other card making accessories – which you can find -> here

Today I’ll start off with some information about the main craftsUprint site.

craftsUprint – also affectionately known as CUP – which you can find -> here

craftsUprint is a site where a couple of hundred different designers sell their designs in digital format.

Card Making – With a huge selection of items being available in digital format, from digi stamp prints to complete kits for cardmaking, you can decide whether you want a complete card design provided ready for you to print, cut and make, or whether you are somebody who wants basic components or a simple background to build up your own card design. And the beauty of it is that once you buy and download a digital file you can decide what to print it out on, and can print it out time and time again to make up however many times you want. So building up a digital library of designs you actually want to use is easy, with only storage space on your computer or external hard drive or other media needed until you want to print. And, provided the items are printed out and made into a handmade items, you can sell your creations as well.

Cutting Files– From simple layer shapes to the most stunning, intricate, designs, there are a huge number of digital cutting files on CUP. With a variety of file types, from .studio, to .gsd, to .svg, etc., there are cutting files for a lot of the electronic/digital cutting machines that connect to a computer. And in addition to cutting files there are Print & Cut files on the site as well.

Other Crafts – You may say – but I’m not a card maker! – but don’t think automatically that there’s nothing on the CUP site for you. CUP also caters for Scrapbookers, Knitters – both hand and machine knitting, Crocheters, Sewers, Cross Stitchers as well. Even if you are a Jewellery maker, don’t rule out the site. If you need a box and gift card to give with your wonderful creations then you’ll find these on the site as well. And if there isn’t already a pre-prepared box design in a shape, colour, or size that you want to make up for your Jewellery, then look in the backgrounds section for something that matches your jewellery and you can use that to make your own, co-ordinating box, or gift card.

Registered Crafters – CUP customers have the option of uploading photos of their finished creations to the site, although only one crafter can do so per digital download. And the beauty of the scheme – if you upload a picture, and it’s good enough to get through validation, and the design then goes on to sell again, you get a Registered Crafter commission of from 2p per sale upwards depending on how many photos you’ve got on CUP. I’m currently a Gold Crafter, and according to my Crafter Control Panel I “require 966 uploads to be upgraded to a Platinum Crafter”. I may well get there one day, but it isn’t going to be any day soon as that’s a lot of cards! I do make a few pennies a month from this scheme, but it’s not enough to do more than buy a few more digital downloads the following month. If you’re a CUP customer and want to know more then have a read of the “Crafter Manual” which you can find a link for in your Crafter Control Panel when you log into the CUP site.

You can see all the photos of handcrafted items I’ve uploaded to CUP by clicking – here.
(Note: the badge was designed when the site was predominantly for card makers, prior to it expanding to other areas such as needlecraft, so it says Registered Card Maker, rather than Registered Crafter, but it doesn’t mean that the scheme is confined to card-makers – pictures of knitted items, etc., can also be uploaded.)

Images of the Moment – Designers are allowed to choose Cards or Images of the Moment from all the photos of completed items uploaded against their designs. It’s a way of advertising what can be made with their designs and give the Registered Crafter who made it their moment of glory.

As I’m writing this (Wednesday afternoon) I have the following items chosen as Images of the Moment by Designers:

Of course, by the time you get around to having a look the designers may have changed their Image of the Moment.

I’d like to thank each and every designer who’s chosen any of my work as their Image of the Moment over the last few weeks for the honour, not just the five listed above.

CUP Mailer – The team at CUP HQ send out a mailer three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. These mailers usually contain a showcase of some of the work available to buy on the CUP site as well as news and updates from both CUP HQ and what some ordinary customers, Registered Crafters and Designers have been up to.

As it’s been a while since my last blog post there have ben several mailers sent out since I last wrote.

As the mailers also contain information about free gifts and discount codes, when some are available, which is quite often, it might be a good idea for you to put your name down for the mailing list. If you click – here – you can put your name down for the mailer to be sent to your E-mail inbox regularly. You also get some free downloads just for joining the mailing list.

craftsUprint on Facebook – You can also keep up with some of the activity on CUP by looking up their Facebook page – here – and clicking “Like”. There’s also a group “I am a Designer or Cardmaker at Craftsuprint”, which you can see – here – that you may want to look up. There’s also the””Luvin” CUP” group that you can find – here.

Card Making Competition – This is the information provided about the competition – “Every month we will have a free to enter ‘themed’ competition for the Crafters of CUP. Entries are kept secret until voting opens. Voting will be 5 votes per user, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 points to be awarded for the cards that you like. Only one entry per Crafter. The winner will recieve a Trophy plus £25 to spend on CUP! 2nd Place will get a £10 voucher, 3rd Place a £5 voucher.” Every entry must have used at least one download bought via CUP and both the cup number of the item, a picture of the finished card, and a description of how the card was made, must be provided when entry is made to the competition. For the July competition the theme is Male Birthday Card, with the closing date for entries being the 20th and the winner being announced on the 25th.

CUP TV – CUP TV is where designers demonstrate making up their own designs. You’ll find tips and techniques and instructions to show anybody buying the designs how to make up particular cards. There’s now over 120 episodes, so that’s a lot of demonstrations. Have a look at the latest – here.

The Craftsuprint Craft Show – The latest venture introduced by CUP is a Craft Show. You can see the 1st episode by clicking – here.

Free Card Verses – If you like to put greetings or verses in or on your cards, but struggle for an idea of what to write at times, then have a look in the Card Verses section of the site. Some of them are not really to my taste, but what I wouldn’t put anywhere near a card may well be just the thing that somebody else loves, so have a search around if you need some verse inspiration.

A Bit Of Fun – CUP also has a few things running that are a bit of fun but also give customers a chance to win a bit of money. For every order placed on CUP an entry is given to the Tombola where you can win a free random download or vouchers to spend on CUP up to the value of £20. Then there’s the Crafty Bob’s Bingo where every customer can ask for a bingo card which they can use for every bingo game. The first player to claim a ‘FOUR CORNERS AND A CENTRE’ of 5 numbers will win £20 in cash and the first player to claim a Bobs ‘FULL HOUSE’, which is to fill in ALL the numbers on your Bingo Card with numbers called by Crafty Bob will win a whopping £100 in cash. And then there’s Crafty Bob’s Crazy 5 Minute Game. If you are wondering what that is then click – here – to read all about it.

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Well, there you have it – a bit of an overview of what’s available on the craftsUprint site. I hope you enjoyed the pictures of my cards even if the site itself isn’t of any interest to you.

(Hi All – You should find a box below where you can leave a comment if you feel like it, but due to the fact that Ive had some problems with Spam/advertising posts, that are absolutely nothing to do with the content of my blog, I now moderate all comments before they go live. Genuine comments will go live when Ive checked through the list – usually a couple of times a day.)

I’ve had a couple of reasonable days again, so spent some time putting together a few more of the items I’d printed, or cut out using my Silhouette Cameo, earlier in the week. I haven’t finished making up everything yet, but quite a few of them are completed now.

The items range from the simple cards that just require printing, cutting out and then constructing, through cards that started out simple but that I’ve then embellished in a variety of way, to a papercraft poinsettia wreath. Hope you enjoy your look around my latest creations, and remember that you can click on each thumbnail image to have a better look at a larger image of each item.

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CARDS:

(Clicking on the text links below each set of images takes you to the pages where you can see some of what I used to make the cards. Where these linked pages are on the CUP site you will usually find a longer description of how I made the item at the bottom of the page.)

A bit of an assortment this time
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10 X Designs Gatefold Collection……..STUDIO by Tina Fitch (With 10 designs to choose from it was difficult to choose which one to work with first, but in the end I decided to go for the one with rose cut-outs, and to cut it from pink 250gsm cardstock that’s pink on both sides. I had a nice, clean, cut in my Silhouette Cameo. I made a panel out of a paper doily for the inside of the card for a greeting to be written on, and also made two cones from the same type of doily ready to put some rose buds into for decoration. I put a line of 3mm wide red backed sticky tape around all edges of the doors and dipped it in glitter. I placed two panels of white vellum behind the doors. I finished off by sticking on the shaped cones using glue gel into which I inserted very pale pink and a couple of white paper rose buds. With my cutting machine doing the intricate cutting this card wasn’t too difficult to make, the fiddliest bit was getting the fine line of tape to go tidily around the edges of the doors.)

Gold Framed Card Template – CU4CU by Mary Jane Harris & Red Poinsettias by Karen Wyeth (Both these items are Designer Resources which I took into one of my graphics packages to create my card design with. Although primarily thought of as a flower plant that’s associated with Christmas, I decided to use a poinsettia from the kit on a card for a winter wedding where the flower theme is to be poinsettias. I decided to make an “open book” style card and picked a red colour from the poinsettia for the greeting “Ar Dydd Eich Priodas” – which is Welsh for “On Your Wedding Day”. I printed everything out onto 250 gsm glossy Tesco photo card before cutting out the card – not a difficult task as the shape is curvy with no intricate areas to cut out. The finished card was then decorated with peel-offs and a ribbon and both sides were curved. The most difficult bit about this card was going round one of the inside “frame” layers with the peel-offs, and that wasn’t particularly difficult, so I guess you can call this an “easy make” card. I’ll put it in a presentation box before sending it. This set of poinsettia images look great, and will make great toppers for Christmas cards as well as other projects.)

Keys by Claire Norman & Assorted Borders……Studio by Tina Fitch (I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out the two most intricate parts of this card. I cut out an assortment of keys out of silver mirror card, including the “18” at a few different sizes so that I had a few to choose from for the card front. I cut an assortment of the borders, including two of some of them, from white vellum. The base card and the mats are made from Satin Board in two shades of purple. I took two strips of the same border and put them to overlap at the cutout side and threaded a piece of purple ribbon in and out through the holes in both, so that they are held together. I put a strip of red backed sticky tape behind the ribbon area and stuck it to the front of a panel of the palest satin board, which was then attached to the right hand side of the base card. The ribbon was trimmed to a short length at the bottom and a long piece was left at the top which was tie to the top of the key. The base card was cut with a dashed rotary paper cutter so that the panel could be detached from the card. Another border piece was attached to a second panel of satin board with another piece of ribbon put around it before the panel was stuck to the left hand side of the card front. I used some fine silver peel-offs on the “bookmark” part of the card and on the other panel. I finished off the card with a greetings panel “Penblwydd Hapus”, Welsh for Happy Birthday, which was stuck on with 3mm deep foam squares. The key is attached to the card front using a hat pin through the ribbon knot, the pin being stuck into one of the foam squares under the greetings panel so that, when the bookmark is torn off, the key attached to the ribbon will come off the card front as well. A bit of care was needed to thread the ribbon through the slots in the vellum borders, and to put the fine border peel-offs in place, but this wasn’t a difficult card to make.)

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Flying the Flag Wales Shell Edged Corner side stacker by Carol Clarke (I kept this card very simple. The page was printed out onto glossy photo paper and the layers cut out. The base image was attached to a card front and the card trimmed to exactly match the size of the topper. The corner stackers were built up in order, attaching each in place using 1mm deep, double sided, foam tape. With the edges to cut being either straight or the gentle curves of the “shell” edge, this wasn’t difficult to cut out, and the card, being very minimalist, was simple to put together.)

Bird songs 2 card sheet pyramids by Sally McIntyre (The sheet was printed onto good quality glossy photo paper and I cut out the layers of one of the birds. The base card is made from Satin Board. After sticking on the base image, and building up the pyramid using 1mm deep, double sided, foam tape to attach each layer, I decorated the edge of the card using little bird peel-offs. Straight edge cutting only for making this card, so an easy card to make.)

Festive Blank 7×7 Glitter Topper 6 by Anna Babajanyan (I printed off the sheet a little smaller than a full A4 size onto good quality photo paper and then cut the panel out. I made a base card from a sheet of A4 Satin Board that toned with the topper, trimming the card down to around 1cm larger around each side. I rubbed some gold, heart and swirl foil rub-ons to the front of the topper panel and attached it directly to the base card. The card was finished off with peel-offs – gold fine border ones just within the outside edge of the card and “Ar Ddydd Eich Priodas” – Welsh for “On Your Wedding Day” – on the topper. With only straight cutting for the topper and base card, and a little rubbing – I used the back end of my Hougie score tool to do this as it’s just firm enough without being so hard that it marks the paper underneath – this was an easy card to make but looks very stylish with the raised gold on it.)

The next batch of pictures are all of two cards made using panels from one kit and decorated with different coloured metalic rub-ons. I was having difficulty getting a picture with a good colour representation of the topper while showing the metallic nature of the rub-ons, so I ended up with more than one picture of each to give you an idea of the shine on the cards.

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Glittered Frame Toppers with Flowers by Lorna Quinney (I printed out one of the sheets in the kit onto Crafty Bob photo paper and cut the two panels out. One panel was stuck to the front of a base card made of purple Satin Board and the other stuck onto the front of a base card made linen textured gold cardstock. I then rubbed some metallic butterfly foil rub-ons. I’ve not added anything else to these cards yet, although I may add a greeting to the front, if needed, when I know what occasion the cards will be given for.)

This card has gold rub ons on it, but it looks dark in this picture, and not the shiny, reflective, colour that it is in real life.

This photo shows the gold better.

Purple, metallic, rub ons were used on this card, though again it looks much darker in the photo than it is in real life.

This photo shows the shine better, although it’s appearing a lighter, pinkier, purple than it is in reality. It may have been picking up a reflection of the colour of my T-shirt when I was standing to take the photo.

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PAPERCRAFT PROJECT:

This is the wreath I made. I wasn’t sure whether it showed up best on a light or dark background so the first two pictures show you the wreath on both backgrounds. Pictures 3 and 4 show you the dimension of the leaves and the seed bead centres. The seed beads really sparkle in the light, but don’t look as sparkly in the photos.

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Studio Interlocking Leaf Swirl by Angela Burke (After loading the file into the Silhouette Studio software I cut the base wreath layer out twice at the largest size from 12″ x 12″ green cardstock. I cut the largest leaf top layer 9 times out of the same type of green card-stock and 9 times out of red cardstock. (only 8 of each were used but as there was space on the sheet, and just in case I managed to tare anything during removal from cutting mat and building up I went for 9 each). I then cut out 18 (three batches of 6) of the other leaf layers out of 3 sheets of A4 gold mirror card. I used 1mm deep, double sided, foam tape to attach the two wreath layers together. I used glue gel to layer the red and green leaf layers all onto the gold layers before weaving the leaves together, putting green in front each time and weaving the red forward. I curved each layer to give some shape. A splodge of glue gel was put at the centre of each built up leaf swirl and a mixture of sparkly red and gold glass seed beeds were sprinkled on. I then knotted some green/white ribbon on two sides of the top of the wreath and stuck on each leaf swirl using glue gel. I’ve made this up in a more traditional colour scheme of red and green, with gold background to the leaves, but it would look just as nice in more modern, ice white and blue with silver. Or even in mixed colours.)

.CRAFTYBOB.COM UPDATE:

You can see my shop on craftybob.com by clicking on my banner below.

craftybob.com is a crafters online market place where a variety of hand made items are sold. From hand made cards to hand crafted jewellery, from a wide variety of knitted items to items such as patchwork cushions. There are also sections of Craft Tools and Craft Supplies. So even if you are a crafter yourself, who isn’t in the market for buying hand crafted items, it’s still worth a pop over to the site to see if there’s anything amongst the tools and supplies that may be of use to you.

Please, if you like any of my items, could I ask you to click on “Like”, or any of the other buttons on the page. Thank you.

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CUP UPDATE:

CUP Mailer – A copy of the mailer sent out on Friday, 6th July, 2012, can be seen by clicking – here. The mailer has details of on the CD-ROM that is part of the free gift for placing an order of over £10 during this week, as well as lots of other news from CUP Land.

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You can see the cards Ive made using design sheets from CUP in my Crafter Showcase Area on Craftsuprint.com – here
(Just scroll down past the top boxes to see the cards.)

(Hi All – You should find a box below where you can leave a comment if you feel like it, but due to the fact that Ive had some problems with Spam/advertising posts, that are absolutely nothing to do with the content of my blog, I now moderate all comments before they go live. Genuine comments will go live when Ive checked through the list – usually a couple of times a day.)

Yesterday (Wednesday) I had a nice long session printing and cutting out designs and toppers – OK! So the cutting out that was done, was done using my Silhouette Cameo with me lounging on the sofa by its side and just removing cut items and putting card on and pressing the cut button on my laptop screen. But at least I’m now back crafting more than a week or so ago. I got a couple of Print & Cut designs cut out ready for assembling today and sending their photos on to Tina Fitch, and quite a few other items cut out as well. Some of which I’ve managed to assemble today as well. I also cut out and made up a few of the sheets today that I’d printed out and put to one side yesterday. I’ve still got quite a few that are either printed or cut left to put together over the next few days.

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CARDS:

(If you click on the thumbnail images you can have a look at a larger image of each item.)
(Clicking on the text links below each set of images takes you to the pages where you can see some of what I used to make the cards. Where these linked pages are on the CUP site you will usually find a longer description of how I made the item at the bottom of the page.)

The cards I’ve made up today include an assortment of Christmas and everyday cards, some of which are made using items cut out using my Cameo, some being quick print/cut/fold cards with added embellishment, and some with layering.

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JUMBO LACY BORDERS 2 by Clive Couter (I chose one of the three borders in the kit for making this card and cut the top layer out three times from a linen effect red 250gsm cardstock and the back panel out three times out of a pink shade of the same card-stock using my Silhouette Cameo. The cut was so clean that after I’d lifted the three top layers I saw that the inner petals were left on my cutting mat and looked good, so I decided to have a play. I put some transfer tape over the petals and lifted the whole lot off the mat while the tape held their relative positions. I put paper glue on the back of each petal and centre of two of the strips and pressed them into place onto two of the back plates then left the glue dry before removing the transfer tape. I used the outline layer on the third back-plate. The base card was made by scoring and folding an A4 sheet of pink pearlescent cardstock in half and rounding the corners with a punch. A mat of silver mirror card was trimmed to size and again the corners were rounded before I stuck it in place. I used 1mm deep foam tape to attach the border strips along the card before putting on a blank greetings panel. No fiddly cutting was involved in making this card as the intricate cutting was made using the cutting machine, but there was a bit of a fiddle in getting the petals to lift off the cutting mat using the transfer paper and in getting the petals off the transfer paper, but using a pokey tool to manipulate the pieces and it all worked very well.)

Floral Selection Set 2 CU4CU by Janyce Cotterill & Boudoir Reflections 2 Insert by Rebecca Brindley (For this card I used the “insert” twice, printing once onto Tesco Finest 250gsm Glossy photo paper and once onto 120gsm good quality paper. These were trimmed, scored and folded, and the paper copy was stuck inside the photo paper copy to make the base card and insert. So that was an easy job without anything difficult for anybody with dexterity problems. I then took an assortment of the flowers from the “Floral Selection” into one of my graphics programs and copied, re-sized, and moved them about until I’d created a panel of flowers the right size to fit within the oval panel on my base card. This was printed out onto Crafty Bob paper. The cutting out of this panel was the most fiddle thing about this card. Although not the most intricate of designs it does have a lot of ins and outs. The panel was stuck to the card front, after shaping, using glue gel.)

Red Poinsettia Someone Special Large DL Card Kit by Ann-marie Vaux (This kit comes with a lot of different sheets that can be used to make the DL Card, but I only used two of the sheets to make this. The base card was printed onto the 250gsm photo paper and the sheet with the poinsettia panels for decoupaging wasprinted onto Crafty Bob paper. To make the base card it was just a case of print, trim, score and fold. There was a bit of fiddly cutting involved in going round the poinsettia, which is why I kept the additional layers down on my card. I used foam tape to attach the poinsettia panels to my card front.)

Fluffy Christmas Cut & Fold Quick Christmas Card (2) by Anna Babajanyan (The sheet was printed onto 250gsm glossy photo card. I then trimmed it, scored it, and folded it. I decided to use small, sticky back, gems to decorate – some red ones at the four corners of the panel, some clear AB ones at the points of the star and a mix of red and blue on the tree. This design could be used without an embellishment, or even embellished more than I’ve done with gliter, larger gems, etc. After decorating this tree I thought that it would be a good way to use up the odd one or two of different coloured sticky back gems I always seem to have left over after other projects, so I may well do that for a future card. There’s nothing difficult about creating this quick card, it’s just easy cutting. I use the pokey tool to lift and position the little sticky back gems as there’s no way I could handle them with my fingers.)

Fluffy Christmas Cut & Fold Quick Christmas Card (8) by Anna Babajanyan (I printed the sheet out onto 250gsm glossy photo paper. I then trimmed it, scored it, and folded it to make the card. I used clear, sticky back gems to embellish – four at each corner and an assortment dotted around the tree. The card could be used as it is if a quick card is needed, but it could be embellished much more than I’ve done with a greeting, glitter, more gems in assorted colours, etc.)

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Butterfly Layered Shaped Easel Card STUDIO-WPC-MTC by Rae Carr (I used my Silhouette Cameo cutting machine to cut layers of this design out of pink, red and blue pearlescent cardstock. I the shaped the flower layers and stuck them together using glue gel. I used a Quickie Glue Pen to attach the fine butterfly layer to the layer beneath then used 1mm deep, double sided, foam tape to attach everything else together. All the layers of this card were cut out using my Cameo machine so no hand cutting at all – easy!)

Floral Selection Set 1 CU4CU by Janyce Cotterill & Fancy Easel Card STUDIO-MTC-WPC-SVG by Rae Carr (I cut the layers of this card out of pearlescent yellow and orange card-stock using my Silhouette Cameo. I created a decorative floral panel and additional floral layers in one of my graphics packages using several copies of just two of the flowers from the Floral Selection Set. This panel and layers was printed out onto Crafty Bob paper before cutting it all out. I used a combination of foam tape and glue gel to stick it all together. I made the floral panel itself an oblong shape, therefore easy to cut out. The flowers were a bit more fiddly with the yellow ones having more ins and outs than the white one, which is why there’s only two of them as additional layers on the card and more of the white.)

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KNITTING:

Well, I’ve done it! I’ve not only finished knitting the last panel for my snuggle throw, I’ve now sewn the whole lot together (nice large plastic needle and 4 ply yarn). Well it was a job I could do with my legs up and the whole weight of the throw over my legs and the arms of the chair. If you click on the thumbnail image below you’ll get a larger image.

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My snuggle throw (or my Blankie as my nephews insist on calling it) is shown here thrown over the back and seat of a 3 seater soffa, so it’s plenty big enough to snuggle under on the sofa to watch TV, or to have over the laps of 3 of us at story time – or my initial reason for starting to knit it was to be able to throw it over the foot of my bed to keep my feet warm on really cold nights.

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CUTTING WORK FOR TINA FITCH:

I’ve been working on some more stuff for the talented designer Tina Fitch lately. These are Print & Cut design of a back to front cards, where you can see through the back of the card and the “gates” are folded behind, to be viewed through the back when it’s standing up.

(Hi All – You should find a box below where you can leave a comment if you feel like it, but due to the fact that Ive had some problems with Spam/advertising posts, that are absolutely nothing to do with the content of my blog, I now moderate all comments before they go live. Genuine comments will go live when Ive checked through the list – usually a couple of times a day.)

I also printed out two shades of purple backing papers onto heavyweight, white, supersmooth, paper.I punched loads of little flowers out of these two papers using a Tonic flower punch  the variegated tones of colours within each sheet means that the flowers have a more natural light and dark shading within them.I used a Red Gold metallic marker in the centre of each of the punched out flowers and tipped the end of the petals of the paler colour flowers with a purple ink pad.

I prepared a base card by cutting and scoring an A3 sheet of Centura Pearl Snow White card to make it 1cm larger in each direction than the main panel.I rounded the right hand corners using a punch and went around all the edges with the same purple ink pad Id used on the flowers.I also put a border of fine, gold, peeloffs just inside the purple inked edge.

I used 2mm deep, double sided, foam pads to attach the mated panel to the front of the prepared card.

To decorate the card I prepared a greetings panel from a Happy Birthday greeting pre-printed on acetate which I attached to a piece of the same gold cardstock as the main mat, and again rounded the corners (this is attached using double side tape in two corners).I shaped each of the flowers by pinching the petals and then used glue gel to stick them all over the central area of the main panel, making sure that some covered the corners of the greeting panels where the tape was visible.I stuck two butterfly layers together to make a dimensional butterfly and put on top of the flowers, and shaped and stuck the other two butterfly layers over the butterflies that are a part of the main panel.

Further views of the card:

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CUP UPDATE:

June Card Making Competition – Results – My card came in at 25th out of 60 entries this time. The winner was Diane Scotland, 2nd was Dianne Jackson and 3rd was Cynthia Massey. The entries and votes gained list can be seen – here – for a short while, usually until the next competition is announced.

-oOo-

You can see the cards Ive made using design sheets from CUP in my Crafter Showcase Area on Craftsuprint.com – here
(Just scroll down past the top boxes to see the cards.)

(Hi All – You should find a box below where you can leave a comment if you feel like it, but due to the fact that Ive had some problems with Spam/advertising posts, that are absolutely nothing to do with the content of my blog, I now moderate all comments before they go live. Genuine comments will go live when Ive checked through the list – usually a couple of times a day.)

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